January 23, 2004
Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-5011)
RELEASE: 04-035
NASA ROVER TEAM READY FOR SECOND LANDING
Some members of the flight team for NASA's the Mars Exploration Rover
program are preparing for Sunday's landing of Opportunity. Others
remain focused on trying to restore the first rover, Spirit, to
working order.
"We should expect we will not be restoring functionality to Spirit for
a significant amount of time, many days, perhaps two weeks, even in
the best of circumstances," said Peter Theisinger, rover project
manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Spirit transmitted data to Earth today for the first time since early
Wednesday. The information about the rover's status arrived during
three sessions lasting 10 minutes, 20 minutes and 15 minutes.
Engineers are examining the data tonight and developing a plan for
obtaining more on Saturday.
Spirit's flight software is not functioning normally. It appears to
have rebooted the rover's computer more than 60 times in the past
three days. A motor that moves a mirror for the rover's infrared
spectrometer was partway through an operation when the problem arose,
so the possibility of a mechanical problem with that hardware will be
one theory investigated.
"We believe, based on everything we know, we can sustain the current
state of the spacecraft from a health standpoint for an indefinite
amount of time," Theisinger said. That will give the team time to
work on the problem.
Opportunity will reach Mars at 12:05 a.m. Sunday EST at a landing site
on the opposite side of the planet from Spirit. Opportunity's landing
site is on plains called Meridiani Planum within an Oklahoma-sized
outcropping of gray hematite, a mineral that usually forms in the
presence of water.
Scientists plan to use the research instruments on Opportunity to
determine whether the gray hematite layer comes from sediments of a
long-gone ocean, from volcanic deposits altered by hot water or from
other ancient environmental conditions.
Analysis of Spirit's descent through the martian atmosphere
contributed to a decision by flight controllers to program
Opportunity to open its parachute higher than originally planned
according to Dr. Wayne Lee, chief engineer for development of the
rover's descent and landing systems at JPL.
The Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter has
taken an image of Spirit's landing region that shows the spacecraft's
lander platform. The jettisoned parachute, backshell and heat shield
are also visible, noted Dr. Michael Malin of Malin Space Science
Systems, San Diego, lead investigator for the orbiter's camera and a
member of the rover science team.
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space
Science, Washington. For information about NASA and the Mars mission
on the Internet, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
Images and additional information about the project are available from
NASA's JPL at:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
Information is also available from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.,
at:
http://athena.cornell.edu
-end-